Worlds Reflect On The Lenses of Your Glasses
by Huinari
Summary: Yusaku's glasses are special. They're made out of a crystal ball's broken remnants, you see. - Or, the story of how little boy Yusaku got his glasses. (crack)


**Worlds Reflect On The Lenses of Your Glasses**

Yusaku's glasses are special. They're made out of a crystal ball's broken remnants, you see. - Or, the story of how little boy Yusaku got his glasses. (crack)

* * *

One day, Shinichi decided to ask his father an important question. "Do you think I'll need glasses when I'm older?" he asked, touching the fake ones he wore as a part of his 'Conan' persona. If bad eyesight was hereditary, then he could very well be accused of being Conan when he returned to being Shinichi, but with glasses. If Ran hadn't been told by then, he would be lucky to survive.

His father took a moment to ponder this question deeply as his glasses glinted. "Son," he said after some thought, "I don't think you'll inherit it - I didn't. But I earned them."

That made no sense to Shinichi, and so he made the mistake of asking his father to elaborate.

Yusaku took a comfortable seat and cleared his throat. "It all began when I was a little boy . . . ."

* * *

When Yusaku was a little boy and didn't yet have glasses (although his eyesight was beginning to get blurry), his father – who, mind, was the most awesome father around – took him to America. Specifically a part of America in the west coast, since he'd heard that it had good views and bald eagles.

Now, it just so happened that while little boy Yusaku and his most awesome father was in the west coast town in America, there was also a carnival going on. Despite the lack of rampant stuffies in obnoxious neon shades, it was still a good carnival. Candy apples, buttered popcorn, beaded bracelets and all the good stuff you used to get at carnivals before they took an arrow to the knee were being sold, traded and occasionally stolen here and there.

Little boy Yusaku was ecstatic at the experience. "A clown," he pointed at the man with the suspiciously red-spattered clothes with hastily applied clown makeup. "Father, it appears that he's murdered someone and is now trying to get away without being punished for his crimes."

His supremely amazing father excused himself to run after the probably-not clown because, well, curiosity and a justice gene ran in the family. The justice skipped a generation every now and then and occasionally acted out because of the one gypsy woman's cursed blessing on his great-grandfather, but it was there in all Kudos, dormant or active.

Left alone in the carnival without any adult supervision, responsible or otherwise, little boy Yusaku did the smart thing and wandered to places that held his fancy. A balloon popping stand that was obviously rigged, a ring toss that was not-so-obviously rigged, a cake walk where a food fight was being attempted, and finally, the bearded lady. Or so the sign said. Little boy Yusaku frowned.

"You're not really a lady," little boy Yusaku said, because his innocence could see through motives fuelled by greed and pathetic attempts to crossdress.

"Shh!" said the effeminate man with a rather impressive beard. "Look, kid, if you don't tell anyone, I'll give you a pass for Lola."

"Lola?"

Why this man was admitting to his actual man-ness and was attempting to bribe a child into silence instead of denying it like any professional would or should have done, no one knew.

"Lola. She's the chick with the crystal balls. Wait, no, that came out wrong."

"How?"

The bearded-lady-man looked a long time at little boy Yusaku. ". . . Never you mind. Anyways, she can see the future, so go and bother her and _don't_ tell anybody about what you saw!"

"A bloody clown?" but little boy Yusaku took the pass anyways. "Thanks, mister!"

"_Shhhh_!"

So little boy Yusaku skipped over to the tent with the obnoxiously large sign that said, 'LOLA'. Once he was near, little boy Yusaku could squint and make out the words, 'will tell you your future'. They were in fine print, you see, and little boy Yusaku had been told that he must always read the fine print, even if that meant taking up twenty five years of his life reading very repetitive material in tiny font over and over again without even being paid to do so like the lawyers did. And since little boy Yusaku was a _good_ little boy (except in situations where people were murdered around him, in which he turned into an 'annoying brat'), he did what his text-addicted, OCD mother told him to do and read all the fine print.

Then, once he was done, he tried to knock at the tent to respect a lady's privacy. It didn't work as well as the bathroom door, but it was the thought that counted. "Hello?" he called into the tent. On the outside, it appeared small, dirty and crowded.

"Come in, child," a voice that could have once been mysterious but now sounded more like a gagging crow croaked at him. Lola, it seemed, was a witch from cheesy cartoons. The bad witches, the kinds who liked to cackle and tried to eat the brave protagonist children but got utterly humiliated in a rainbow-coloured way.

Seemed like a good idea. Little boy Yusaku entered the tent.

Inside, it was even dirtier and smellier than he had imagined. "Are you Lola?" he asked.

The fat woman tossed her handful of thin, graying hair behind her shoulder. "Of course I am," she snapped. "Do you have a pass?"

He gave her the pass he'd gotten from the bearded man who wanted to be a bearded lady. "Can you really see the future?" he asked, a little skeptical even at his young age. After all, he was a Kudo, and all members of the Kudo clan were skeptical at the core of their bookworm-y, whimsical hearts.

Lola cracked her thick knuckles. "Observe, non-believer," she waved her sausage-like fingers above a glowing crystal ball. "With this magic crystal ball, I can see anything."

"I see. Is it convenient?"

Lola frowned. The carnival folks had said that all she needed to do was use the magic of the crystal, not talk to annoying brats. "Yes. Now shut up."

Little boy Yusaku did and waited patiently, watching distorted images come up in the crystal. "Oh, yes," Lola cackled. "The crystal shows me all!"

Little boy Yusaku saw those images too, and he thought, 'Not as clearly as it could be.'

And the science part of the brain began to turn. If the light could refract in the crystal a certain way, surely the crystal could be clearer.

So concentrated was he in his thoughts that when a head poked into the tent through the flap, he screamed and fell off his chair.

Without even bothering to check if he was okay or not, the rather rude head began to talk. "Excuse me, ma'am?"

Lola, just as uncaring about little boy Yusaku's state, looked at the head of the man. "What?"

The man who had poked his head into the tent raised his hand through the opening. "Ma'am, I'm with the Seattle police. I just need to question all the staff."

"I'm busy!"

The policeman eyed little boy Yusaku (finally). The picture he was seeing was a seemingly crazy woman with an innocent boy on the ground. "Ma'am, if you want, we can take you down to the station."

"Oh, very well," throwing her chubby arms up, Lola struggled to get out of her chair.

"Thank you, ma'am. Now, where were you between the times of . . . ."

Normally little boy Yusaku would have gone after them. Normally.

But that crystal ball needed help.

Getting to his feet, little boy Yusaku reached towards the crystal and picked it up, grunting at the weight. It was very heavy, like a large rock. Which it was. Because it was a crystal, you see, and a genuine one. Not one of those glass fakes you see nowadays on the market. Those are cheap imitations. This was the real deal.

Little boy Yusaku lugged the crystal ball out of the tent, deciding to be a child and sneak out by unpegging the tent's pegs on the side opposite to the flap.

Minutes later, Lola would stomp in after her police interview, scream at the sight of her crystal ball missing and run to get the policeman to report a robbery. She would be ignored because a murder case was more important than some false psychic's fake props, and in her rage she would take revenge by becoming a serial killer who left tarot cards at the scene of her crime to mock the police that had grieved her with their injustice years and years later.

(Little boy Yusaku would solve that case, only as not-so-little teenager Yusaku rather than little boy Yusaku when the time came, but this is another story entirely and hence only a summary of the events shall be left here for the sake of references in future events.)

Once he was out of the tent, he dusted his clothes and grabbed the crystal ball again. He used all the strength he had in his spindly little boy arms to get the ball away from Lola's filthy ten-cents-per-hour rent-a-tent tent, and towards the very nice, shiny and silver-painted twenty-bucks-per-hour rent-a-truck truck. Little boy Yusaku managed to roll the crystal ball into the back of the truck, but dropped it into the open section at the last moment.

_Crash tinkle tinkle._

Little boy Yusaku paused. Nope, didn't sound like a shattering crystal ball to him.

Leaving it there, he turned and walked out of the parking lot to return to the carnival, walking past a couple, one of whom dropped dead after finishing his chocolate ice cream cone moments after little boy Yusaku passed them on his way to enjoying the rest of the carnival.

(It would turn out to be murder – poison, to be exact – but again, that's another story.)

After thoroughly enjoying the remnants of the carnival, surprisingly not shut down despite the three-or-more murders that took place during his stay, little boy Yusaku and his father walked to their rented truck.

"Dad," little boy Yusaku told his awesome-but-for-some-reason-unnamed father, "I need to get something out of the truck."

"Alright, son," said his awesome-but-for-some-reason-unnamed father, who then opened up the back of his truck for his son.

Little boy Yusaku saw the crystal ball right away – or, what had once been a crystal ball. Now it was more like two crystal semi-spheres and a lot of shards and powder.

Apparently, when glass broke, it made a _crash tinkle tinkle _sound.

"Oh, those hooligans," said his awesome father. "They tried to powder-glass our rented truck."

Little boy Yusaku didn't bother wasting time despairing or correcting his awesome father. Instead, he climbed into the back, picked up the two semi-spheres carefully in order to not cut his hands and carried them with him to the front. "Let's go, father!" he called from shotgun. "I bet mother's worried about us."

Remembering his wife's temper, his awesome father hurriedly closed the back and climbed into the cab to begin driving.

That night, at the hotel, little boy Yusaku began to call his contacts. He needed a very specific job done, and he didn't want questions asked. Especially from his mother, who wasn't happy with how her son had somehow been indirectly responsible for a few more murders.

* * *

"Dad," Shinichi held up his hands, impatient after hearing the story that didn't seem to have a point. "That's all great, but I _just_ want to know _how_ you got your glasses."

Grown man Yusaku touched his eye-ware. "Well, I _was_ just at that part, but since you interrupted I do believe that I'll have to start all over again."

"Dad!"

"Fine, fine. Teenagers – no sense of appreciation for decent stories nowadays. Now, where was I?"

* * *

"When you said you wanted a favour done," the man in the black trench coat and suspicious-looking hat growled in irritation. "I didn't think you meant this."

"Why not?" little boy Yusaku tipped his head to the side.

The man gestured at the semi spheres sparkling innocently up at him from the table set up in the back alley. "I should have killed you when you stumbled onto our meeting."

Little boy Yusaku only gave the man known to him as 'Bloodhound' an enigmatic smile. "Didn't I make your business go better?"

He grumbled something that sounded a lot like the words his mother had told him to never use in public or in her hearing distance, adding the oh-so-familiar "annoying brat" to the forbidden terms.

"I'm sure you'll mellow out, uncle," Little boy Yusaku said cheerfully. "When you're old and ready to retire."

Sighing now – curse his soft heart – Bloodhound snatched up the semi-spheres and yelped when an edge cut his finger. "I'll get them back to you in three days."

"I'll be in Japan by then," little boy Yusaku told him.

"I'll find you," and with those rather creepy words hanging in the air, Bloodhound disappeared after setting off a smoke grenade. Once the smoke cleared little boy Yusaku could see him running off into the distance, huffing and swinging his arms awkwardly because of the shattered orb he carried.

Using remnants from his toy forensics kit little boy Yusaku collected the blood drops left behind before returning to the hotel to help his mother pack his bags.

Later, he ran the blood and found it to belong to one 'Kenzo Masuyama'.

* * *

Shinichi opened his mouth to protest. His father gave him a look, as if he was waiting for the question so he could answer it in the most ridiculous way possible.

The son gave it some thought and decided that the guaranteed hit to his sanity wouldn't be worth it. He shut his mouth.

Yusaku continued.

* * *

Little boy Yusaku ate his broccoli without even a word or facial expression of complaint. His clothes were neat in all their starchy crispness, his hair was still combed and gelled, his face was clean and he wasn't dirt-stained like his peers.

His mother wanted to scream. Her son had been acting like an angel ever since their return to Japan. He was up to something. She knew it.

But she had absolutely no intention of finding out what, not after the last time.

(Apparently, the Illuminati still existed and her son knew how to contact them.)

So when the window creaked open and not-so-quiet steps stomped down the drainage pipe she just stayed in her warm bed. Her son would be fine.

* * *

"Did anyone follow you?" Bloodhound rubbed his fingers and winced when the bandage pulled at the cut.

"Probably not," said little boy Yusaku.

"Probably? Probably isn't good enough, kid!" He was still a young member in the Organization, with high ambitions and aspirations. The kid had helped him climb ranks the first time, but a single mistake could mean many things, none of them good.

Little boy Yusaku shrugged his bony shoulders. "Relax," he said, "it always works out in the end for me."

Not so much for the people around him – but he didn't tell Bloodhound that.

Still wary, Bloodhound handed the boy wire-rimmed glasses, fitted with special lenses. "This is the last time, you hear?" he whispered angrily. "I won't answer any more messages from you."

"Sure," little boy Yusaku agreed as he put on his glasses. "Wow, the world looks weird."

"That's because your eyes are still healthy," Bloodhound retorted, forgetting for a brief moment that he was supposed to cut contact with the brat. The gun lay heavy in his coat pocket, reminding him what he really should have been doing. He did his best to ignore that.

"Oh," little boy Yusaku stared at the ground. "Well, then, I'll just wear them until my eyesight gets worse."

* * *

Shinichi stood up. "I refuse to listen to this story anymore," he said flatly.

"Come on, Shinichi," grown man Yusaku flung out his arms, face up towards the ceiling. His wife wasn't the only one for the dramatic flair. "Where's your reading spirit? Reaching the end of the story?"

His son paused, and Yusaku could see the reader's spirit imbedded in every Kudo fight to hear the ending and get the closure, but then his face closed. "There is no end to this story," he complained and left his study with that declaration.

Yusaku sighed, and took his glasses off. Holding them at arm's length, he examined them like he was examining the face of an invisible man, with the legs of his spectacles facing away from him. Wire-rimmed, bent and bent back into shape a hundred times – perhaps more. It was old, no doubt, but made out of good material – good wire. His acquaintance had truly come through for him in his time of need as a young, desperate child, giving more than what was asked for.

But then again, Bloodhound had been young then too. Perhaps he could have spared enough kindness in his heart to buy a good pair of glasses for a weird little boy he liked to call a brat. And several other very rude words.

It was the lenses, however, that were important. If he stared at them long enough as they lay in his hands, a distance between a fortune teller and a crystal orb away from his eyes, he could see the details of events that hadn't happened yet be reflected. And when he put them on . . . .

He put them on and blinked once. Grown man Yusaku saw in clear detail just what little boy Yusaku on that fateful day had seen as he put glasses on for the first time.

He saw everything.

And he smiled the enigmatic smile that sent chills down everyone's spines.

* * *

AN: Read the new Magic Kaito chapters. I think I'm going to be returning to this fandom slowly.

This was a story inspired by one of the many nonsensical, crack-filled conversations between Fluehatraya and I. Go check out her stories, they're great.

Kenzo Masuyama, for those of you who don't remember, is Pisco. I just gave him an animal rank because I think lower-class members get animal codenames (like Snake), and then alcohol if you get higher.


End file.
